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Data Mining the Belleville Senators

Assessing the Team

Since the AHL is living in the dark ages of tracking data, those of us interested in looking beyond the bare stats available have to do our own work. I haven’t tracked everything, just kept tabs on scoring chances and player usage on special teams.

The bare bones: after a nine-game road trip Belleville is 4-4-1, having scored 27 goals (3 per game) and allowed 31 (3.44 per game). The team is giving up an average of 36 shots against, while firing 28 themselves. Their powerplay versus shorthanded situations are almost identical (49/47), scoring 6 and giving up 8.

Goaltending
Carrying four goalies is a bit much, but Chris Driedger was injured for most of the month and with Marcus Hogberg sent down to the ECHL, the road was cleared for veterans Danny Taylor and Andrew Hammond. The latter has clearly outplayed the former:
Hammond 1-1-1 .929 2.69
Taylor 3-3-0 .903 3.27

The expectation was for Taylor to carry the mail, but he’s been hit and miss so far this season (3 above .900 games, 3 below). The lesser used Hammond hasn’t had a start below .921, so it will be interesting if Kleinendorst starts to play them accordingly.

Down in Brampton Hogberg has been getting his head kicked in: .863, 5.30, but before we get too alarmed the other goalies are sporting .868 (starter McNiven) and .833 save percentages, so at least some of the fault has to go to the team’s defense in front of him.

Keep in mind the small sample size for players with fewer games played (the fact Chabot has been on-ice for 4 even strength goals should alleviate any concerns about his zero on that front).

Breaking Down Special Teams

I’ve done my best to track both line combinations and shifts for the PK and PP. Currently the team is 6-49 on the PP (12.2%, 21st in the league), and 39-47 on the PK (83%, 16th in the league)–for reference last season the team was 15% on the PP and 79% on the PK. So, who is being used in each situation?

Conspicuously absent from the above are the heavily played McCormick and Blunden. The two receive a tremendous amount of ice time with the man advantage, but their lines do not score. This isn’t to say they can’t produce on special teams, just that they’ve been overplayed in that role thus far.

Player usage is the most interesting thing here–who is or isn’t playing and what is or isn’t successful. By my count there have been 27 different powerplay formations already, but some are certainly more common than others and certain players are regularly deployed. In terms of pure, raw usage (as in, shifts), the top six forwards are Chlapik, Paul, Rodewald, McCormick, DiDomenico, and Werek. The top four defensemen are Jaros, Lajoie, Chabot, and Burgdoerfer.